


Scoreboard

by Rayj4ck



Category: Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts
Genre: Gen, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Seriously I love this show, Takes place somewhere between them finding the first burrow and the second, it was worth it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-20
Updated: 2020-01-20
Packaged: 2021-02-27 16:08:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22329856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rayj4ck/pseuds/Rayj4ck
Summary: The gang stumbles upon a particularly interesting building of old
Comments: 8
Kudos: 111





	Scoreboard

They were walking down the street when Kipo squealed at the top of her lungs. 

“What? What? What is it?” Wolf was instantly on guard, putting her back to Kipo and pointing her staff forward, scanning for ant danger. Dave, in his muscled form, stepped in front of Benson and Mondu crouched down to the ground, ready to bolt. 

“Oh my god guys, look!” Her tone held no fear, but elation as she ran past Wolf to stand in front of one of the decrepit buildings. 

“Oh, it was one of _those_ screams,” Wolf grumbled as she lowered her staff and trudged after Kipo.

“Arc-a-de” Benson read off the sign. 

“Arcade.” Kipo corrected him. “It was a place in the old world where people went to play games!” 

“Great! So not worth looking into.” Wolf said flatly, turning away. 

“Oh, come on Wolf, just a quick peak? I’ve always wanted to see one.” Kipo dashed around to Wolf’s front and clasped her hands together.

Wolf sighed, knowing she couldn’t say no. “Fine. I guess we have to go in after them anyway.” Jerking a thumb over her shoulder. Looking up, Kipo saw Mandu, Benson, and Dave climbing inside, entranced by the aesthetic of the building no matter how faded and torn it was.

“I’ll take it! Wait up, guys!” Kipo ran in after them, and with another sigh, Wolf followed behind.

The group explored the one-room building for a while, turning over ancient ticket machines and cracked tables. Mandu found his way behind the snack counter and started gorging himself on the remaining concessions. Right when everyone was starting to wrap up-

“Hey, over there!” Everyone turned to look at Benson, who was pointing to a soft glow from the back corner of the arcade floor. Approaching slowly, Wolf in the lead with her staff drawn, they rounded the corner on the glow. 

“No way.” Kipo breathed, awed. “An arcade cabinet! And it still works!” Rushing over, she examined the machine. There was a small crack along the top, right corner of the screen, and Pac-Man’s face was faded to the point of near-recognizability, but it seemed to be functioning perfectly. “How is it still on, though?” Kipo muttered to herself. 

“You know a lot about this stuff.” Dave commented.

“My dad was a big fan of them.”

“Oh, so he was a nerd to?”

Kipo snapped her fingers, seemingly ignoring the last thing Dave said. “Dave, give me a hand outside?”

“Sure.”

Running back out and around the side of the building, she looked up at the low roof from the ground. “Give me a boost?”

Shrugging, Dave grabbed her ankles and easily lifted her straight up into the air. With her new height, she was just able to see onto the rooftop. “Aha! Solar panels!” 

“Solar huh?” Dave asked as he put her back down, and then followed her as she ran back inside. 

“Solar panels! They convert light from the sun into power. They were going to use them in the Burrow, but it would’ve put a big target right over where it was. They could be useful to grab, but they’re too big to carry and we don’t have anywhere to put them-”

“Blah blah blah nerd stuff.” Dave pushed her out of the way with his shoulder. “We gonna play this thing or what?” He grabbed the joystick and pressed a button, but the screen didn’t change. “Hey, what? I thought you said this thing worked Kipo!” 

“It does! Look,” She pointed to the bottom of the screen. “You need 2 tokens to play.” 

“Oh.” 

“I saw that over here I think,” Benson spoke up. Leading them around the rubble, he stopped in front of a machine bolted to a crumbling pillar, the words _Token Exchange_ in faded ink at the top. “Look. ‘1=4 Tokens.’” He read off the plate. “What’s that though?” He said, pointing to the ‘$’ symbol.

“I don’t know.” Kipo leaned in and examined it, but got no new information so she turned to the rest of the arcade instead. “How are we going to find that….” She trailed off, lost in thought. Or she was, until a _CRASH_ from behind her made her jump. Turning, she saw the token machine on the ground, a huge dent in it’s side and Dave standing over it.

“What’re you doing?” Wolf hissed through clenched teeth. “You skipped the dinner bell and rang the dinner freaking gong!” 

“It said ‘exchange’! I ‘exchanged’ the coins for my fist!” Dave didn’t exactly answer the question, instead picking up two tokens and jogging back over to the machine. Behind him, Wolf ground her teeth together and considered cutting off all of his arms, until Kipo put a hand on her shoulder. She didn’t say a word, just smiled understandingly at her. Grinding the heel of her hand into her eye, Wolf took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Yeah, I know. Let’s go.” 

When they arrived at the machine, Dave was already playing. “Don’t touch the wavy things, eat all the dots,” Benson whispered to them when they approached. Nodding, they peered over Dave’s head to watch. 

They weren’t sure how well he was doing, having no benchmark, but it seemed to be going well. Or at least, for a while. Dave was just about to finish the level he was on when he froze with an “HRK!” A cracking noise signaled his older self’s eruption from the back of his shell, and on screen, his last life died running into a wall. 

“Aw drat!” Dave whinged, shaking an arm feebly at his old shell. “One day that’ll happen at a convenient time.”

“Yeah, sure.” Benson replied sarcastically as he dragged the shell out of the way. 

“Hey Dave, you got a high score!” Kipo pointed at the screen.

“A what?”

“You get to be on this list here!”

“The what?”

“....I’m just gonna go ahead and fill this out for you.” Kipo leaned in and quickly entered the letters. Leaning back, she cried “I call next!” as she raced to collect two tokens from the broken machine.

“What, really?” Wolf asked, exasperated. 

“Well, we can’t let Dave be the only one on the leaderboard.” Kipo inserted her coins, and the game’s screen flashed to the beginning. “Now ssshh.” She waved her arm at Wolf, who just rolled her eyes and watched Kipo play.

Her reflexes and skills were impressive, and combining that with the fact that she went for all the fruit in the middle put her well above Dave by the time her last life faded away. “Nice!” She pumped one arm in the air, entering her name with the other. “You wanna try Wolf?” 

“No.”

“Oh come on, just one run.” Kipo extended two extra coins in her palm. “You can be on the scoreboard~.” She sing-songed. Wolf eyes the glinting tokens for a moment, but eventually, with a huff she swiped them out of Kipo’s hand. “Yes!”

“Don’t make a big thing out of it.” Wolf hissed over her shoulder as she inserted the tokens. Kipo smiled and nodded innocently, but Wolf knew it was just an act. 

Wolf’s turn was very similar to Kipo’s. So similar in fact, that when Wolf finally bit the dust Kipo let out another ear-piercing squeal. “We’re score-sisters!” She cried happily, pointing to the screen. Sure enough, Wolf had scored a mere 10 points higher than Kipo, putting them right next to each other on the board. 

“Yeah, whatever.” Wolf brushed it off and quickly entered her letters, but Kipo could see the soft smile on her face in the reflection of the screen. Deciding to let it drop, she turned to Benson. 

“Well, last man standing? Want a go?” 

“Oh heck yeah. I’ve been watching you guys play, I’ve got this down.” Benson went to retrieve his own two coins. When he returned, he pulled out his cassette player. “Hhhhmmm….Ha! I forgot I had this one!” Holding up a tape right under the top of the machine, the title of the game lined up neatly with the words “Pac Man Fever” written in ink on the tape. Sliding it into the player, he pulled on his earphones, pressed play, and slid in his quarters.

Mandu, finished with his feast on the preserved concessions, waddled over and slumped at the group’s feet. They didn’t notice, however, too focused on Benson’s game. He was further than any of them had gotten before, and he went even longer until his last Pac Man folded itself away. “Wow Benson that was amazing!” Kipo eagerly shook his shoulder, causing Benson to delay his entry on the scoreboard. 

“Pretty useless skill, but impressive.” Wolf conceded.

“My knees hurt!” Dave complained, just before metamorphizing into his cocoon stage. Sighing, Benson bent down and lifted him up into his arms. 

“We should keep moving,” Wolf growled out. “We’ve spent enough time on this useless thing as it is.”

“Hey, it’s not useless!” Kipo replied. “It’s fun! And besides,” she looked at the high score screen wistfully. “I bet the rest of these names were for people long before now. And now we’re up there with them, a part of history.” 

“Hmph. Maybe you’re right about it not being useless. BUT-” she cut off Kipo’s open mouth. “We still have to go.”

“Yeah, fair.” Kipo bent down to pick up Mandu and followed Wolf back through the destroyed building. 

Rank Score Initial

#1 3333360 PZV

#2 1362760 YXL

#3 1045840 BSN

#4 956430 BOW

#5 895460 WLF

#6 895450 KPO

#7 845190 KAT

#8 739080 DVE

#9 728610 MAE

#10 693410 WBY


End file.
